News from around the world

A convicted sex offender has been charged with attempting to murder and rape a woman in Barre more than a year ago. Authorities say DNA evidence played a part in identifying the suspect in this vicious crime which is very similar to a sex crime that sent him to prison 16 years ago.

Police say they had little to go on after a 50-year-old woman was sexually assaulted and her throat slashed in her Barre apartment in March 2008.

The victim said the attacker was a slender African-American wearing a dark sweatshirt and hoodie but she had never seen him before.

But Wednesday, after 16 months of investigation, police say they have enough evidence to charge Ed McAdoo Johnson, 48, with the crime.

“At the time he was identified by people in the area, so he was a suspect from the beginning,” Washington County Prosecutor Tom Kelly said.

Police say Johnson was the victim’s neighbor and knew who she was through an ex-girlfriend. Police say the case got stronger when Johnson lied to them and others about his whereabouts at the time of the crime, tried to get others to provide an alibi for him, and was seen minutes before and after the crime near the apartment. Then when saliva samples on the victim produced DNA evidence– Johnson was charged.

“Evidence,” Kelly said. “Mitochondrial DNA. Three labs have examined two pieces of evidence and have not excluded Mr. Johnson.”

Police did not have to go far to arrest Johnson. He was already in prison facing charges that he exposed himself in public several times.

It’s all part of a 30-page crime record that could bring Johnson a life sentence as an habitual offender if he is convicted of the new charges.

Johnson was ordered held on $200,000 bail on all the pending charges.

Johnson’s record shows that when the woman was attacked in Barre he had been out of prison only eight months after serving 13 years for kidnapping a woman he had never met off a street in Montpelier and holding a knife to her throat during an attempted sexual assault. If he goes to trial on these new charges it is possible prosecutors would be permitted to tell the jury about that case because it is so similar to the new one.

FREDERICK, MD – A summer production of “Annie” is getting a lot of fanfare – not because of the talent, but because of the play’s director. Turns out he’s a convicted sex offender.

The director, Samuel Huffer, spent 21 months in federal prison for possessing child pornography. He had worked as a drama teacher in Walkersville, but when officials raided his home in 2001, State’s Attorney Charlie Smith says they found pornographic tapes of boys.

“A leopard doesn’t change their spots,” Smith said. “I would think that there should be a moral obligation on these types of programs to notify parents.”

The play is put on by the Frederick Town Players. The community organization didn’t notify parent’s until three weeks into rehearsals.

“I don’t think Sam will harm a child. He certainly was convicted of a serious crime, he served prison time, and fulfilled his probation,” said Rick Weldon, who plays Daddy Warbucks.

There are about 50 people in the cast, and half of them are children. Weldon says Huffer is an exceptional director and the children are not in danger.

He added, “I would never put my personal reputation on the line to be involved in a production that I thought children were going to be at risk. I just wouldn’t have done it.”

Huffer has completed his three years of supervised probation. The State’s Attorney says he is not breaking the law by directing plays.

OMAHA, Neb. — A man who tried to arrange for the slayings of his former girlfriend and her two children has been sentenced to 50 years in prison, said Pottawattamie County Attorney Matt Wilbur.

Terry Leggio was sentenced Monday in Council Bluffs. Leggio is already serving 50 years for a sexual assault conviction. Police said he unknowingly made a deal with an undercover investigator to kill the children – he was convicted of molesting, their mother and an investigator.

Pottawattamie County Attorney Matt Wilbur said the two consecutive sentences will prevent Leggio from seeking parole until Leggio is 102.

A registered sex offender we first told you about months ago is back in trouble again after allegedly exposing himself to children.

Police say Lewis Harrison exposed himself to girls sitting on the front porch of a West Louisville home Sunday night, but it’s far from the first time police have had dealings with him.

Harrison’s record goes back to 1987. He has numerous arrests for indecent exposure, voyeurism and failing to comply with the sex offender registry.

He’s been charged before with pleasuring himself near pools and bus stops, but hasn’t spent much time behind bars for his alleged crimes.

The last time WHAS11 told you about 41-year-old Harrison, he had just been thrown in jail for allegedly pleasuring himself at a school bus stop.

A new victim is now speaking out about Harrison. Two teenage sisters say on Sunday, a stranger parked in the alley across from their home, then pretended to work on his car.

The girls say eventually the man began exposing and pleasuring himself. They called police, who arrested Lewis Harrison on felony charges of first degree indecent exposure, but this was not the first time.

Since 1987, Harrison has been charged repeatedly for sex crimes involving children, the charges include 14 counts of indecent exposure, voyeurism and failing to comply with the sex offender registry.

Police said Harrison had pornography, Vaseline and a camera in his car.

A mother in the complex also said Harrison attempted to abduct her young daughter. According to police reports, Harrison was sitting in his vehicle touching himself while watching small children swimming in Shelby Park pool. When officers took him into custody, he had a picture of his private parts attached to a note with his phone number on it.

Yet Harrison has spent relatively little time behind bars. The sexual abuse charge stemming from September’s arrest is a Class D Felony, punishable by up to 5 years in prison. Yet Harrison pleaded guilty to a lesser charge and was sentenced to probation and time served only 13 days.

Harrison was arrested six months later after passing out in his vehicle with his exposed genitals in his hand.

Harrison is currently being held under a $5,000 full cash bond. He’ll be back in court on the latest charges on June 25th. His trial for another incident in March is scheduled for August.

FORT WORTH — Wesley Wayne Miller, one of Tarrant County’s most notorious sexual predators and killers, is headed back to prison.

Miller, 46, violated terms of his civil commitment order by having a romantic relationship with a female jailer at a Tarrant County facility where he was housed after his release from prison.

For that violation and two others, he was sentenced to 10 years in prison Friday under a plea agreement.

Before the plea was finalized, prosecutors consulted with the sister of Miller’s 1982 murder victim and with another woman he attempted to rape, said prosecutor Alana Minton.

Miller, a former Castleberry High School football star, was sentenced to 25 years in prison for the stabbing death of Retha Stratton, an 18-year-old Castleberry cheerleader. He later pleaded guilty and was sentenced to 20 years in prison on an unrelated charge of burglary with intent to commit rape.

Over two decades, he was repeatedly released on mandatory supervision under a state law in effect when he was sentenced. Each time, he was sent back because he refused to participate in sex-offender counseling or was accused of another crime, including stalking a Wichita Falls woman.

In 2006, Miller became the first convicted murderer to be civilly committed under a 1999 law, which was expanded in 2006 to include killers with sexually motivated conduct.

That meant that Miller, after he was released from prison in 2007, had to live in supervised housing, follow a long list of rules and be supervised by the Council on Sex Offender Treatment.

After initially being sent to another facility, he was housed in Tarrant County’s Cold Springs unit. Last May, he was charged with violating the rules by having a relationship with a 21-year-old jailer. He was then transferred to the county’s downtown facility, where he was charged with two other violations — visiting with his father and brother, who had been taken off his approved-visitors list.

Miller’s attorney, Curtis Fortinberry, contended that the charges should be thrown out because the civil commitment rules did not apply because he was living in a secure facility.

After his ruling, Fortinberry said Miller agreed to plead guilty to all three charges in exchange for concurrent 10 years sentences. If he had been convicted by a jury, he faced 20-year sentences on each of the three charges because of his prior convictions, Fortinberry said.

Because prosecutors were asking that the three sentences be served consecutively, Miller was looking at 60 years in prison if he hadn’t taken the plea, he said.

However, Miller will not be eligible for parole on his 10-year sentence under terms of the civil commitment law, Minton said. That means he will have to serve all 10 years, she said.

Miller will be allowed to appeal the judge’s ruling on the motion. Fortinberry said he hopes an appellate court will rule that the civil commitment law is unconstitutional.

“We’re looking for some appellate court to clarify the law,” he said. “If they declare it unconstitutional, the Legislature will clean it up and make it right. It’s a good law. It serves its purpose, but the way it’s written does not.”

Minton disagrees.

“He’s saying that because Mr. Miller is housed at Cold Springs, he is being confined; therefore the rules don’t apply,” she said. “But the law doesn’t say that. It says he can be housed in any facility the Council of Sex Offender Treatment say he can and he has to follow the civil commitment rules.

“Mr. Miller was aware of what his requirements were under his civil commitment. He knowingly violated those requirements and this is the consequence.”

The Jefferson Parish Sheriff’s office says an autopsy of an 8-month-old boy led them to arrest the boyfriend of the baby’s mother.

According to Sheriff Newell Normand, police responded to a call in the 1600 block of Gary Court in unincorporated Gretna to a call of an infant who was unresponsive.

Normand said that officers found the lifeless body of the infant, Da-Von Lonzo. The baby was taken to Ochsner Westbank, where doctors pronounced him dead at the scene.

After an autopsy showed the death to be a homicide, Normand said that police interviewed 17-year-old Arnold T. Ross, who described himself as the boyfriend of the baby’s mother.

Police say the autopsy report also noted multiple fractures throughout the body consistent with that of a beating. The child also had tears in the anus.

According to Normand, Ross initially told detectives the infant fell down the stairs while he was babysitting the child and stopped breathing.

Investigators say that a neighbor had heard loud noises coming from the apartment where the baby was later found dead.

According to Sheriff Normand: ” Ross admitted that while he was watching the infant, the child began to cry. As the crying continued, Ross confessed to beating the infant repeatedly. According to Ross, the child began to defecate on himself. Ross claims he placed his fingers inside the infant’s rectum in an attempt to clean up the child.”

Police booked Arnold Ross with one count of First Degree Murder and one count of Aggravated Rape.

Normand says Ross has a lengthy criminal history with arrests for Possession of Crack Cocaine, Possession of Marijuana, Obscenity, Battery on a Correctional Officer, 3 counts of Battery on a School Teacher, 3 counts of Theft, Illegal Carrying of a Weapon and Assault.

Alfred Balcuns, 51, of Montauk was arrested on Friday, May 22, at 3:28 p.m. at 15 Fenwick Place in Montauk and charged with sexual abuse in the first degree for alleged sexual contact with a child under 11, a felony, and endangering the welfare of a child under 17, a misdemeanor.

The incident occurred at Hither Hills Beach in Montauk on Saturday, May 16, East Hampton Town Police said. The father of the victim, a boy under the age of 11, was nearby but unaware of the contact between Mr. Balcuns and his son, Detective Sergeant Chris Anderson said. The boy told his parents what had happened soon after it occurred and the boy’s father reported the incident to police on Sunday, May 17, Det. Sgt. Anderson said. The victim was not related to Mr. Balcuns, according to police.

Police said they interviewed the child and his parents and submitted all documents related to the investigation to the Suffolk County District Attorney’s Office of domestic violence and child abuse, which then presented the evidence to a grand jury, which indicted Mr. Balcuns.

“The testimony of the victim was pivotal in the proceedings against him,” Det. Sgt. Anderson said.

On Friday, May 22, East Hampton Town Police received the warrant and arrested Mr. Balcuns, a landscaper, while he was at work. He was turned over to Suffolk County Police and held in county jail when he could not post bail.

Mr. Balcuns was previously convicted of sexual abuse in the first degree on March 13, 2001, according to the National Sex Offender Registry.

Gov. James Douglas signed into law a pair of bills designed to eliminate profits from crimes and a comprehensive set of new requirements, restrictions and consequences for the state’s sex offender registry and teen “sexting”

Flanked by lawmakers and law enforcement during a ceremony Monday at the Rutland Police Department, Douglas signed S. 26 and S. 125 into law.

The first bill, inspired by a fatal shooting in which police said a wife killed her husband in West Rutland, deals with the legal disposition of property upon a person’s death. It would prohibit a person who stands to make financial gains from another’s death from reaping those rewards if they are charged with or convicted in the person’s death.

The other new law serves as a supplement to a law passed at the start of the year, which increased potential penalties for those convicted of sex crimes in the state.

The new law institutes stricter registry requirements for sex offenders and broadens the information available to the public about offenders’ whereabouts. It also addresses “sexting” — the practice of sending indecent or pornographic images electronically — by minors. Teens who violate the law face a juvenile offense handled in either family court or through diversion programs.

HILLCREST – Residents at an apartment complex for the disabled say they are going to withhold rent until a registered sex offender is evicted.

“I’m not going to pay one dime, not one penny,” resident Stephanie Soto said yesterday afternoon. “We pay to be safe in our homes. There’s no way we’re going to pay rent for our lives to be in danger.”

Arco Management, the company that runs Eckerson Village, has said in recent weeks that a background check of Michael Fonti by a third-party company failed to reveal his past.

Fonti is a Level 3 sex offender who served prison time after being convicted of abusing a boy.

By law, all permanent registrants on the national and state sex-offender registries are prohibited from living in any properties funded through the Department of Housing and Urban Development. Eckerson Village is such a property.

Fonti – who, like most of the residents of the 23 units, uses a wheelchair – said he just wants to be allowed to live in peace.

It will soon be a crime for convicted sex offenders to have contact with their victims. The Channel 8 I-Team first exposed the lack of existing law to prevent a rapist from moving next door to a victim’s family.

When we first heard from Barb Caldwell, her situation seemed so beyond the pale it was almost unbelievable. She insisted the man who raped her 4-year-old granddaughter some 20 years ago had just become her next door neighbor.

Caldwell was true to her word. But even more shocking, there was nothing in Nevada law to prevent the man from doing it.

In an effort to protect themselves and others, Caldwell and her granddaughter testified in favor of a bill to prevent sex offenders from having contact with their victims or with witnesses who testified against them.

The bill, sponsored by Assemblyman Lynn Stewart, applies only to offenders on parole, probation, or lifetime supervision.

Though Caldwell says she’s thrilled the bill will now become law, she’s equally frustrated that it will not apply in her case. The man who raped her granddaughter emerged from prison free of any restrictions.

“There’s other victims out there that may be going through the same thing that I’m going through and if it can help anyone besides me, I just want to get help for me and the others,” she said.

Governor Jim Gibbons signed the bill late last week. It will apply to offenders who are convicted on or after October of this year.